Protection Paladin Netherlight Crucible Recommendations

This section of the Protection Paladin Guide explains the best relic trait choices for the Netherlight Crucible, a new system of artifact weapon progression added in Patch 7.3 Legion. This guide is written by Liminara, creator of TankChat, moderator of Paladin Discord.

Relics and the Netherlight Crucible

The Netherlight Crucible is a new feature in patch 7.3 that allows you to empower your relics with additional traits. It can turn even the weakest relics into viable options depending on how lucky you are with its randomly-rolled traits. Netherlight Crucible traits are randomly selected when a relic is first put into the Crucible, so one Ungestümes Nachbeben may have completely different traits than another Ungestümes Nachbeben! You should always preview a relic's potential traits before you use it or throw it away unless it is a significant item level downgrade. Previewing a relic's traits will bind it to your character, so if you are thinking of trading it to a party member, don't preview and lock it to yourself.

The Netherlight Crucible grants a simple 3-tier, branching tree of traits to each of your 3 equipped relics. You must choose one trait from each tier. The first tier is always a 5 item level increase to your weapon. The second tier is a choice between a light or shadow trait. The third tier is a choice between one of three weapon traits, and your available options are affected by which direction you went in the second tier (left vs. right). Your ability to choose traits for your relics is gated by your weapon's Artifact Level.

You must be at Artifact Level 75 to completely customize your weapon at the Netherlight Crucible. At current Artifact Knowledge values, this is expected to take several months. Don't worry, it's something to work toward!

Here is a breakdown of Artifact Level values and trait availability:At 60, you unlock the second tier of your first relic. At 63, you unlock the second tier of your second relic. At 66, you unlock the second tier of your third relic. At 69, you unlock the third tier of your first relic. At 72, you unlock the third tier of your second relic. At 75, you unlock the third tier of your third relic. Job's done!

Tanking is, as always, a bit of a conundrum when it comes to making recommendations. If you're tanking cutting-edge, high-level Mythic raid progression, you will want different things from someone pushing high-level Mythic+ dungeons, working on Heroic raid progression, or occasionally filling in during farm raids on an off-spec. Moreover, the item level approximations that most DPS classes are able to make of their traits doesn't really translate to tanks at all due to the lack of functioning SimulationCraft modules for tanks (even if there were, making those pure DPS numbers translate into the broader picture would either be difficult or useless).

Consequently, the best recommendation I can make is to list the traits in order of value, first defensively, then offensively. I will weigh more heavily toward single-target scenarios for offense. Tanks do much better in AoE (and tank DPS is more relevant in Mythic+ than Mythic raid, for example), but single-target is much more reliable.

Tier 2 Traits

Because your choice in Tier 2 affects which traits you can reach in Tier 3, you need to balance both the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bonuses when you make your Tier 2 choice. With the opening of Antorus, der Brennende Thron, it is now possible to obtain Insigne der Großen Armee, which increases the potency of your Tier 2 Crucible traits by 50%. It might be a really strong legendary if you are lucky with Netherlight Crucible rolls!

Tier 3 Traits

For the final tier, there are three options of traits present on relics normally. Those options are random, but can't be the same trait given by the relic. They aren't limited to traits that give throughput, and can be utility traits.